Episode 9, the lovely Christmas-themed, mid-season finale holds plenty of juicy plots and superhero-worthy action. Stephen Amell who plays Arrow talked with The Huffington Post to spill more of the secrets surrounding the final episode before we take a little break from Amell’s abs…I mean, the show.

Amell said, “There is some big stuff. The whole idea of doing this superhero and doing a superhero without super powers is that he is vulnerable and he is fallible and he can be hurt.” And who better to go against than his current unflappable rival, Deathstroke. “I actually do believe that Deathstroke is in Episode 9, possibly,” he teased.

Want to know more about the island flashbacks? Amell said, “We’re about to take a little bit of a break from the island, I believe. I mean, we left it in a very interesting spot with him finding [his father’s] book; but when we go back to the island, there’s no more sitting around in the cave.”

If “Year’s End” doesn’t sound amped enough, Amell went on to say, “I really think that we’ve moved forward with the series, that we’ve continued to raise the stakes and 9, right at the beginning, does a great job of illustrating just how much higher the stakes have gotten since the pilot.”

Higher stakes. A possible Deathstroke sighting. And Christmas. Sounds like an epic mid-season finale. Watch “Year’s End” on December 12th at 8 pm.